Gold (Australian TV channel)
| Company type | Television channel |
|---|---|
| Industry | Broadcasting |
| Founded | 2012-05-01 |
| Founder | WIN Corporation |
| Headquarters | Australia |
Area served | Regional Australia |
| Products | Infomercials, educational content, lifestyle shows, community programs, classic television series |
Gold (presented as GOLD) is an Australian advertorial datacasting channel introduced by WIN Corporation on 1 May 2012. It broadcasts across most regional WIN Television markets on LCN 85, featuring infomercials, educational content, lifestyle shows, community programs, and classic television series sourced from the Crawfords archive.
History
Testing for the channel commenced on 26 April 2012 on LCN 84 under the placeholder name "TBA". By 30 April, the channel confirmed its official launch as WIN Gold (styled as WIN GOLD) scheduled for 6am on 1 May 2012. Shortly after, on 5 May 2012, it was rebranded to simply Gold.
In March 2016, following the return of WIN HD and introduction of 9Life, WIN reorganized its channel lineup to mirror Nine Network’s metropolitan structure: 9Gem shifted to LCN 82, 9Go! to LCN 83, 9Life to LCN 84, Extra moved to LCN 85, and Gold was assigned LCN 86.
When WIN altered its primary affiliation from Nine Network to Network 10 on 1 July 2016, the channel arrangement was revised again: One occupied LCN 81, Eleven took LCN 82, TVSN appeared on LCN 84, and Gold returned to LCN 85.
On 1 July 2021, WIN reinstated its main partnership with Nine Network. Consequently, the lineup shifted with 9Gem on LCN 81, 9Go! on LCN 82, and 9Life on LCN 83. Meanwhile, TVSN and Gold remained positioned on LCNs 84 and 85 respectively.
Availability
Gold is broadcast in standard definition through WIN’s regional affiliates: RTQ Queensland, WIN Southern New South Wales & ACT, NRN Northern New South Wales, VTV Victoria, TVT Tasmania, MTN Griffith, STV Mildura, as well as MGS Mount Gambier and LRS Riverland.
Previously, Gold was available on WIN's Nine-branded metropolitan outlets NWS Adelaide and STW Perth via LCN 94 until their acquisition by Nine Network in 2013 under Nine Entertainment. Following this change in ownership, Gold was replaced in these cities by Nine’s infomercial datacast channel, Extra.
Gold 2
On 13 July 2013, WIN introduced a secondary datacasting service named Gold 2—a five-hour timeshift of Gold—broadcasting on LCN 82. This channel briefly aired in Perth on LCN 92 while WIN retained control until the transition to Nine Entertainment on 30 September 2013. Afterward, Gold 2 was supplanted by Extra 2. Due to Nine’s prior ownership of NWS Adelaide, Gold 2 was never carried there; instead, Nine launched its own Extra 2 channel on that market from 1 July 2013.
Gold 2 ceased operations on 19 January 2016 and was replaced by the Nine Network’s metropolitan infomercial channel Extra, which subsequently relocated to LCN 85 across WIN stations.